Harden scored only 7 points in tiebreak, Van Vreet scored 80 points in 3 games! Congratulations to the Rockets, no one signed the wrong person with a maximum salary

On May 4, the Nuggets took the home court and defeated their opponents with a score of 120-101 in the first round of the playoffs against the Clippers, thus eliminating the Clippers with a big score of 4:3 and advancing to the next round. Although Jokic's performance was relatively dull in this game, Westbrook became the key figure in the team's victory with his comprehensive data of 16 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 5 steals.

In addition to Westbrook, players such as Murray and Aaron Gordon also have extremely impressive performances. It was their outstanding performance that helped the Nuggets defeat the Clippers led by Leonard and Harden. Next, the Nuggets will challenge the Thunder, which is ranked first in the Western Conference regular season. However, being able to break through the siege in a fierce confrontation with the Clippers is an amazing achievement for the Nuggets led by Jokic.

In contrast, the Clippers have undoubtedly been another disappointing season. Although the Clippers have returned to the comeback of superstar Leonard this season, the team's core Paul George went to the Philadelphia 76ers to join forces with Embiid. In this round of series with the Nuggets, the two teams fought for 7 innings.

In the most critical tiebreak game, Harden's performance was really bad. He only hit 2 goals in 8 shots in the game and scored only 7 points. Although he sent 13 assists, for the Clippers, at this stalemate, they urgently need Harden to shoulder the heavy responsibility of scoring at critical moments, and use his crazy scoring performance to change the situation. However, Harden once again disappointed the team and the fans.

Someone joked that Harden had never seemed to have "disappointed" people in the matter of losing his chain at a critical moment. The Clippers wasted a season of hard work, and no one knows how long Harden, who is now 35 years old, can continue his career. This may be the reason why the Rockets refused to renew Harden with a big contract during the offseason two years ago.

Everyone should remember that Harden had the right to break out of his contract and became a free agent, and he was eager to return to Houston and join the Rockets. But unfortunately, at that time, the Rockets replaced the coach and Uduka replaced Silas. When choosing the main point guard, at the suggestion of coach Uduka, Rockets general manager Stone finally signed Van Vreett on a three-year, $130 million contract instead of James Harden.

This operation disappointed many fans at the time, but judging from the current playoff performance, this decision was undoubtedly quite wise. In the last three playoff games, Van Vreet has fired all out and scored a total of 80 points. In the previous game where the Rockets equalized the score, Van Vreet scored 29 points by himself, successfully leading the Rockets to defeat the powerful Warriors with his own strength. Comparing Van Vreett's highlight performance in the playoffs, looking at Harden's embarrassing data of only 7 points in 2 of 8 shots in the tiebreak, we can see that the Rockets did not choose to renew Harden's contract at the time, which was indeed the right move.

Although Harden may be more stable in overall performance, he has also performed at the All-Star level in some playoff games, and has become an All-Star in the regular season, but in the most critical and competitive playoff tough battle, especially in this tiebreak battle with a certain victory or defeat, Harden once again lost himself and exposed his own problems. In addition to age factors, there is obviously a big gap between Harden and Van Vreet in terms of mental attributes and stress resistance at critical moments. So, although the operation of Rockets general manager Stone signed Van Vreett with a maximum salary two years ago was puzzling at the time, judging from the current playoff performance and record, this operation is undoubtedly extremely reliable.